but now i feel the next step needs to be: (1) keep ACA and employer-cover healthcare but (2) replace the 'market options' with a single medicare buy-in based on a flat percentage of income and (3) lower the soc-sec retirement age and age of eligibility for free medicare.

another goal that's bery important to me is that all children in this country need to have free health care, free dental care, and free vision care. the status or income of 'rents is irrelevant.

In a way that if an exchange had less than 3 insurers a public option would then become available. It would have preserved competitive private insurers...or don't compete and the government will take over.

The insurers are trying to divide up the market again and agree not to compete with each other.

And, if the Democrats had a clue,
NOW, would be the time to ram home an honest, consumer friendly, effective, easily understood, REAL health care program.

You're familiar with the legislative process, right? Because I'd love to know how those "clueless" Democrats would magically "ram home" ANY healthcare bill at this time, given that Republicans control the House, the Senate AND the White House. Does it involve pixie dust and a unicorn?

keep it from a vote, or vote against it on the floor. Go on the news shows and to the papers and to social media everyday asking why Republicans will not repeal and replace Obamacare with an improved plan that includes vision and dental that will cover more Americans, and provide more care, in a more cost effective manner.

McCain had drawn a line in the sand. Did Lindsey think he could pull him over? really?

It seems impossible because I didn't think he could ever do that and he is supposed to be his friend.

The two women were no's. We're never going to be any thing else.

The whole thing really made absolutely no sense. It's the kind of thing where you assume there had to be something else going on.

Is it even possible congressional republicans are so spineless, so gutless and craven they would actually go through this whole humiliating sideshow JUST to "look like they were doing something" to Donald?

who are going to stop writing checks if they can't get things done. They are in dread fear of 2018, and they should be. They hitched their wagon to a guy who does not help them one iota, and hurts them plenty.

squarely in its cross-hairs. Tax cuts for the super-rich and possibly for the lower middle class, with big tax increases for the upper middle class. Am I cynical to think this targets the social class he identifies as the liberal Democratic base, while benefiting his own perceived bases?

1. Lower the corporate rate from 35 to 20 percent. This makes absolutely no sense. Today's effective corporate tax rate (what they actually pay after deductions and credits) is almost the same as our major trading partners. Plus, American corporations are already so flush with cash they don't know what to do with it except buy back their current shares.

Reduce the tax rate for so-called pass-through businesses - including hedge-fund, private-equity, and real estate partnerships like Trump's and Jared Kushner's -- to 25 percent. This means that instead of paying the top rate of 39.6 percent, these mavens will pay 25 percent. It's a giant loophole for the super super-wealthy.

Lower the top tax rate for every other rich person from 39.6 percent to 35 percent. This is absurd. America's rich have gained the vast bulk of all the economic gains for the past decade. They're richer than ever.

Raise the bottom tax rate from 10 to 12 percent. Really dumb. Aren't the poor already poor enough? True, the plan doubles the standard deduction and expands the child tax credit, which will offset much of that increase, but why increase taxes on the poor at all?

Oh, and how much will all this cost? They don't say, but studies of similar plans produced by Trump and House Republicans have been projected to cost $3 trillion to $7 trillion over a decade.

Where will this money come from? Either (1) cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which are the only big pots of money in the federal budget, apart from defense spending - which Republicans want to increase, or (2) an exploding national budget deficit.

1. The personal exemption for dependents is eliminated and the standard deduction is doubled.

2. Seven brackets are decreased to three. The bottom bracket goes up and the top bracket goes down.
3. The framework proposes using a new measure of inflation--presumably chained CPI, though it doesn't say so. If that's what it is, it would make bracket creep worse and would steadily raise taxes on the middle class. It might also be a Trojan Horse, providing an excuse to apply it to Social Security as well, which would reduce the growth of Social Security payments. This one is a sleeper. Keep an eye out for what it turns out to be.
4. The child tax credit is increased and it phases out more slowly. There's a small new tax credit for non-child dependents.

5. The estate tax and the Alternative Minimum Tax are eliminated, to the delight of millionaires everywhere.

6. Itemized deductions are eliminated except for all the ones that matter: mortgage interest, charitable giving, the EITC, retirement accounts, and education accounts. Off the top of my head, I think these account for about 70 percent or more of all itemized deductions.

Oh, and it was a 2-page plan. Two pages. Seems a little short on details.

What Trump's plan says: "The framework shrinks the current seven tax brackets into three - 12%, 25% and 35% - with the potential for an additional top rate for the highest-income taxpayers to ensure that the wealthy do not contribute a lower share of taxes paid than they do today."

What that means: There are currently seven tax brackets, and this changes it to three. Trump did not reveal the cutoffs for the brackets, but some people in the current lowest bracket, which is 10 percent, could actually see a two-percent tax hike. And the highest earners, people who make more than $418,400 a year, will have their taxes cut from 39.6 percent to 35 percent. That could save a $500,000-a-year executive $23,000.